Beginning with when the Spectrum opened up in 1967 and Veterans Stadium followed four years later, eastbound travelers on the Schuylkill Expressway crossing the Walt Whitman Bridge into New Jersey have had the chance to see an ever-changing Philadelphia sports complex from their car windows.

Farther south, those entering Jersey on the Commodore Barry Bridge have another sports venue to spot, and this one is virtually underneath the bridge.

It may not be as famous as its sports neighbors to the north, but both PPL Park and its primary tenant, the Philadelphia Union of Major League Soccer, are becoming better-known entities.

In its sixth year of operation, PPL Park, soon to be renamed after Talen Energy, is a thriving facility with more events to come.

With the Women's World Cup boosting interest in soccer, perhaps PPL Park and the Union will gain more traction when it returns home on Saturday July 11 to play the Portland Timbers.

The Union has just five wins in its first 19 games, but even if its record easy doesn't merit a thumbs up, the venue does.

PPL Park, which has 18,500 seats for soccer, is an easy place to reach. Once inside, it offers quality sight lines for the action on the field and the Delaware River and Commodore Barry Bridge next door.

Nick Sakiewicz, the CEO and operating partner of Keystone Sports & Entertainment, the ownership group, loves to see the place hopping and not just for Union games. He sees the place as a versatile facility capable of hosting much more than just soccer.

"This is going to be a record year for events," Sakiewicz said proudly. "We've got our basic programming and that's being the home for the Union and it's been a great venue for them, selling almost to 100 percent capacity for every home game. It's a great place for viewing soccer, but it's also great for other events.

"We've hosted the Villanova-Delaware football game, and we've had a lot of rugby, including the NCAA sevens championship tournament and professional rugby, which had a record-setting gate. We've hosted NCAA men's and women's lacrosse. Also, a major music concert is coming in October with stages outside the venue and a big stage inside. We're looking at turning it into a multi-day rock festival."

Sakiewicz said more than 500,000 guests will come through the PPL Park turnstiles this year.

When people ask Sakiewicz why build in Chester, his answer is simply: "Why not?"

"When you look at map and where the Blue Route (I-476) meets I-95 and you look at the northeast corridor rail lines and the train stations here and you look at the Commodore Barry Bridge, which is iconic in its structure offers amazing views in the backdrop of the stadium, we're at the nexus of transportation," Sakiewicz said. "It's so easy to get here.

Chester doesn't an exactly have the most wholesome of images as a family-oriented destination. Allentown dealt with similar perception issues with its new PPL Center in the heart of its downtown district.

A recent Philadelphia Inquirer story noted that the place, which was two-thirds funded by the public, hasn't revitalized Chester as quickly as predicted. The waterfront still is largely barren around the stadium.

But Sakiewicz says he believes the facility has been a great asset with even greater potential. Perhaps more business people need to believe in Chester as much as Sakiewicz does.

"This place has been safe; it has been secure," Sakiewicz said. "The off ramps that were built in conjunction with the stadium make for easy access off the highways. It has been a real asset to the region."

Sakiewicz said that out of the 52 weekends in a year, PPL Park has something going on in about 30 of them.

"We also do a lot of little events during the week," he said. "You might see a corporate event going on in the club or a special outing on the field during a dark day."

Still, the major attraction is the Union and the MLS.

Sakiewicz admits that's it's tough for a relatively young club to compete in the MLS.

"These are still the early days, he said. "This league is growing like a rocket ship. The MLS is on fire right now with 20 teams. When we came into the league six years ago, there were just 16. More are coming … Atlanta, Indianapolis … by the end of the decade, we'll be up to 24 teams.

"The Union has been awesome and we're looking to launch a minor league team next year and we're looking for a home for them. And the Allentown/Lehigh Valley area is an area we're looking at as well as others. The whole sport, in general, is growing and expanding."

Sakiewicz knows the Lehigh Valley and said the Union partnered with ArtsQuest to host viewing parties at SteelStacks for the World Cup matches, both this year and last year.

"We hope to be making more noise in the Lehigh Valley, positive noise, in the months to come," he said.

Meanwhile, Sakiewicz and the Union want more sports fans from the Lehigh Valley, and from around the region, to give his place a look.

John Torres, the Union's head groundskeeper and a member of the Sports Turf Managers Association, is not only in charge of the stadium surface but also on the state-of-the-art practice field outside.

He was proud to show off the place on a recent tour, and proud to be associated with the Union and its home venue.

"Being able to mix what I love doing with the sport of soccer, gives me the desire to come into this place every day with high intensity and setting high standards," Torres said.

"I want everything to be as perfect as it can for the fans in the stadium, for the fans on TV and especially for the players who perform on this surface. It's a challenge here to keep our field in top shape because of the weather … we sometimes get the worst of the worst with major snowfalls in the winter, high heat and humidity in the summer, and high precipitation in the spring and fall.

"But we still work hard to make this place the best it can be."

Torres believes PPL Park has a great reputation among the Union players and the opponents.

Sakiewicz said on game nights, the place comes alive.

"The people create a lot of energy in the stands and the players create the energy," he said. "It's a just a place with a lot of energy and we just look at our game nights as a party for 18,000 people."